Elected Officials

COUNTY TAKES ACTION TO GIVE FLOODED RESIDENTS ACCESS

COUNTY TAKES ACTION TO GIVE FLOODED RESIDENTS ACCESS

2002-10-23 00:00

Recent heavy rains in Doña Ana County – particularly in the Vado area – have rendered some non-county roads impassable to emergency vehicles. Although the county does not normally maintain non-county roads, emergency situations warrant exceptions.

County crews have been dispatched to the affected areas, where they are pumping standing water from the roads and filling washed-out roadways with dirt to provide temporary traffic access and facilitate drainage.

Doña Ana County maintains 1,380 miles of roads in the areas outside the cities of Las Cruces and Sunland Park and the villages of Hatch and Old Mesilla. To put this in perspective, a person could drive from Las Cruces to Montgomery, Ala., on the number of miles the county maintains annually. Of the 1,380 miles of county?maintained roads, 325 miles are paved.

Thousands of additional miles of roads in the county are non-county maintained, meaning they are not up to the standards the county requires to add them to the official inventory of maintained roads. These are usually private roads, and maintenance of them is the responsibility of the residents who live along them. The county can only provide service along these roads if they become impassable to emergency vehicles. Most non-county roads are marked with red road signs.

For more information, call the Doña Ana County Transportation Department at (505) 647-7100. Residents calling from outside the Las Cruces area may call toll-free at 1-877-827-7200 and request extension 7100.